Zuma's Reform For SelfApril 1, 2017 By Abiodun Giwa

President Jacob Zuma

A Western Cape High Court in South Africa has dismissed a suit filed by the Democratic Alliance, seeking to halt President Jacob Zuma's cabinet reshuffle. The court ruled on Saturday that the DA had failed to prove it had power to intervene in the president's prerogative to select his own cabinet, according to a news report by News24. Simultaneously, President Zuma has swiftly sworn in a new cabinet. The drama follows Zuma's reshuffle of his cabinet on Wednesday, including the removal of the revered finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, against public opinion and the advise of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and followed by public disaffection. "Zuma must fail," has thus become a common refrain among South Africans, who are voicing their opposition to the sudden removal of a finance minister, whom they trust and many people are calling for his reinstatement. But Zuma was done with that and he moved on, disrespecting the people's wish. But observers say that Zuma has merely confirmed what South Africans have been saying about his corrupt tendencies and his grand scheme to achieve his corrupt objectives. Reports said that Ramaphosa told Zuma not to remove Gordhan, because Zuma" decision to remove the finance minister was based on a dubious intelligence report, but Zuma insisted on Gordhan's removal. Reports said that Gordhan was accused of fraud charges last years, but the charges were reportedly dropped. But the dubious report referenced by Ramaphosa as dubious intelligence report said that Gordhan was mobilizing oversea's investors to push for regime change. With the intelligence report that said Gordhan was scheming for regime change, curious observers could easily understand the reason for Zuma's removal of Gordhan, despite reports about Gordhan's sterling performance as finance minister, an office he assumed in 2015, when the markets were gripped by panic, and a lawmaker first appointed by Zuma lasted only four days as finance minister. Gordhan is reported to have restored sanity in the markets and the local currency, rand, recovered gradually. People are saying that Zuma's reform, reference to the cabinet reshuffle and the finance minister removal, is for self and not in the public interest. Political analysts agree that it is what always happen, when a leader perceives that his position is being threatened by the popularity of a subordinate, and that Zuma's perfectly crafted and well executed plans for cabinet reshuffle, represent a struggle for survival. Curious analysts said it was too bad that intelligence report got to Zuma's desk, accusing Gordhan of a scheme against Zuma, and that whether or not that the intelligence report was fictitious or real, did not matter. And that who ever were the sources of the intelligence report had achieved the aim of turning the president against the finance minister. And that it was why Zuma turned deaf ears to pleas that were against the finance minister's removal. Like most leaders, Zuma does not seem to think that it is the sterling performance of any subordinate that will sustain him in office, but their loyalty. Zuma knows that he is no longer popular among South Africans and that he can live with. But not with the knowledge that his finance minister is truly of falsely digging a political grave for him. ​